


The Past Is Dust and All That Remains Are Bitter Remnants

by lunar47



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Clan Lavellan spoilers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, POV Lavellan, POV Solas, Solas and Lavellan touch a lot, WIP, but that's okay, eventual post game AU, fade shit, this may not be how magic works
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:39:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4658130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunar47/pseuds/lunar47
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her clan is decimated in Wycome the Inquisitor and Solas find her people once again in the Fade...and it also may just be the start of Lavellan's new destiny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where Spirits Dwell

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a chaptered story but more along the lines of connected short stories instead of one chapter immediately following the other. But they are too connected to use the collection format.

Inquisitor Saelihn Lavellan looked upon the bitter wasteland where her people once stood; a burned out city. Ashes rained from the sky as thick smoke still clogged the air. Her eyes passed over the bloated corpses of the elves…her brethren. She could not tell Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel from the other bodies. Their facial features were so obscured from rotting in the sun. It had taken her party too long to reach them.

 _How could the townsmen not bury the dead? Have they no heart?_ Wycome was no place for her people. They belonged in the Free Marches. They belonged entombed beneath the willows, where the verdant grass and the wind could guide their spirits into the fade. Not in this blighted city.

She turned to an Inquisition soldier that was inspecting a ruined building, “I want all my people moved out of here. They don’t belong in Wycome any longer.”

“They are just shells _lethallan_ , nothing more. What made them who they are is long gone.” Solas spoke softly from her side while leaning on his staff.

“Don’t tell me that,” She bit him off. “They never deserved this. Cullen’s forces shouldn’t have retreated.”

“It was a losing battle, Inquisitor,” Cassandra reasoned. “They did it to save themselves and not inflame the situation further.”

“Yes, and my people paid the price.”

Saelihn took one last look at the city and then strode down the road out of town, assured that her troops would do their job to bring her people home.

 

-*-

 

The day passed and then the night. Her people buried, prayers and guttural songs offered to the Gods. She sat against a tree, its branches swaying in the breeze. The Inquisitor watched the flickering light of the campfire, the way it cast shadows on the tents and the ground. Her trusted companions, Cassandra and Varric, were no doubt bickering again as was their way. Solas, the man who she could honestly say held her heart, was running a cloth along the staff she affectionately called “Winter’s Wrath”.

Saelihn looked to the stars and took comfort in their familiarity. But it was an odd sort of familiarity. As if she had just recently become accustomed to it. There was _Judex_ and _Draconis_ shining brightly in the night sky. Tevinter names in nature if she remembered correctly. _Laytia_ , her favorite, she couldn’t find. But the memory of the constellation was hazy and dreamlike. As if she had conjured it up. Maybe it wasn’t even real. 

Her eyes grew heavy, sorrow weighed at her soul. The last thing she remembered was Solas looking up at her, his keen eyes staring intently into hers.

 

-*-

 

The veil was a heavy thing to cross. Saelihn had a feeling that it did not want her in the fade. Every time before she had been dragged into the fade by someone else or she had ended up there inconsequentially; pulled by Solas into a rendering of Haven or tumbling into it with Hawke and her party members. She often did not remember her nightly wanderings and now she questioned if it was because she had never even entered the fade by herself. Very much like the dwarves who did not dream.

She pushed against the invisible resistance until she was spat out onto the other side. And what she saw shocked her to her very core. The fade had pulled at a memory so very distant that she had nearly forgotten that it had existed. 

White dunes surrounded her and a path of Acai Palms led to large pyramidal temples with gleaming ivory tops. A Tall sandstone wall surrounded the city proper. Warm sweet wind kicked up her simple dress and brought the smell of sweet spices to her nose. A magic staff, possessed of fire, was strapped to her back… _odd_. She was a rogue. She dealt death with poisoned knives. She held no magic. 

This place felt like home however. Her heart skipped a beat for she knew instinctively where she was but couldn’t put a name to it. She yearned for it yet it terrified her all the same. 

A name rose to the surface of her mind… _Asra_. But she didn’t know what it meant.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her arm and she was being pulled away from her vision. Saelihn was back in the dark forest but still in the fade. Solas had found her. For once she resented his presence. She wanted to know more about that familiar desert oasis.

“I wasn’t expecting you here.” She began. Wisps started to collect around the couple.

“I called to you but you did not answer. I was worried. While I do not fear the spirits that roam the fade there are some that aim to deceive. I have no wish to see you succumb to one of them.” He took her hands in each of his own. It was a rare gesture of affection on his part. But one that she usually appreciated.

He did not appear to have seen what she had witnessed. 

Saelihn wanted to explain her vision, wanted to get his opinion. But what if some demon was just playing with her mind. It had felt so real though. It called upon a kernel of something from her past. Something unrealized. She had questions that maybe only Solas could answer. 

“Solas…can the fade show you things you have forgotten?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Knowledgeable in most things about the fade Solas put on his scholarly hat and indulged her, “In the fade a spirit can latch on to memories or concepts that dreamers, you or me, have and transmute the world around them to emulate what we see. So in that they can pick up on things we may have hidden away in our minds. But we must be thinking about them in some respect to have any force in the fade.

Did you see something that disturbed you _da’len_?”

“No…maybe. I don’t know if I understood it, truly.”

“Then put it out of your mind if it troubles you.” He rubbed his thumbs gently on the back of her hands. She took comfort in that small action. 

“I want to show you something Saelihn. I think you will appreciate it.” He took her hand and led her through the wooded forest. Tiny fluorescent wisps lit their way. Flowers of riotous color unfurled as they passed and the plant leaves seemed to follow in their wake. This was a fade she had never seen before.

“Why are things so different here? It’s beautiful. Did you create this?” Saelihn wanted to know.

“I did not in fact. But it is indeed beautiful.” He held out his hand to stroke a saffron colored flower and the petals curled into themselves before extending once again when he passed. They walked on until Solas brought them to a stop, “Ah…here we are.” The foliage opened up onto one massive willow tree lit up with veins of silvery-blue fluorescence. Translucent spirits, elves by the looks of them, circled the lustrous tree and Saelihn was awestruck. 

“I don’t understand…”Saelihn shook her head.

“These are your people, _vhenan_ , having found their way into the fade. They live as spirits now for eternity.” He was still holding her hand and he gave it a small squeeze.

“Do they remember?” She asked sadly.

“Their lives, their deaths? Some I’m sure do. Some prefer to move on and live as they do now.” He gazed down at her, his eyes were soft.

The Inquisitor turned and smiled up at Solas, “Thank you for showing me this. I think it’s brought me a modicum of peace now.”

“You are very welcome.” He smiled back.

“Though it does not excuse what happened,” her voice took on a hard edge and her mouth twisted into a grim line. 

Solas’ smile faltered then turned somber, “It may not excuse it but just remember how far to take your anger. Sometimes one does not know when to end it.”

She recalled Solas’ spirit friend turned into a pride demon. How he went after the mages responsible. Solas knew the taste of revenge. He would let her have it but he might just temper how far she went.

Saelihn broke from his contact and turned away from him, “I think I’m ready for this dream to end.”

The fade was already beginning to blur around her. The veil was once again a thick barrier that she had to force herself through. 

 

-*-

 

She opened her eyes to find the sun just peaking over the crest of the hill, the dawning of a new day. Solas was still asleep propped up next to her on the other side of her tree. His staff was resting in his lap. He had moved to be closer to her before he had entered the fade himself.

Her first thought was for her people. They had made it safely into the fade. They would be okay. And what Solas showed her had been beyond lovely. She couldn’t thank him enough for that. She would try to tell him that when he awoke.

Her thoughts next drifted to her unexpected dream. The white sand dunes, the pyramids, the staff at her back and the mana she felt coursing through her. She wasn’t a mage, couldn’t be. She tried to call upon that magic now but she felt nothing. Mages must have a connection with the fade and the fade didn’t exactly like to admit her. But the dream had felt so real. And the word _Asra_ …what did it mean?

Saelihn would put it aside for now. There were more important things to worry about. Like the Inquisition and fade rifts and Corypheus. _Asra_ could wait.

When the others awoke they would leave Wycome and this field behind them. They would return to Skyhold. She hadn’t decided what to do with the Free Marches. Cullen would surely have her leave the area alone for now. It was too volatile. Red lyrium had poisoned Thedas. If the Inquisitor could be rid of the substance in its entirety she would have done so. All it brought was madness.

She brought her knees up to her chest bumping Solas’ staff by accident. He awoke and they shared a moment, softly staring in each other’s eyes, as the early morning sun lit their faces. 

Theirs was a curious relationship inhabiting many different forms. He was both her _hahren_ (elder and mentor) and _lethallin_ (kin though by no means Dalish). Could she call him her lover? Well that was the thing. One passionate kiss in the fade and another on her balcony. He called her _ma vhenan_. There was an undeniable string that bound them together for better or worse. She found that she wanted to please him, to ask the right questions. She lost herself a little in him. She wondered if it was the same with him. Saelihn hadn’t the nerve to ask.

“It is a beautiful morning _ma’arlath_. Is it not?” Solas glanced at the rising sun then back at Saelihn. He touched her cheek with the back of his finger and she couldn’t help but shiver. Sometimes he was so casual with his affections it threw her for a loop. He could be ardent, fierce and yet utterly restrained.

Looking at Solas in the dawning light she had the sudden urge to run. Grab Solas’ hand and flee as far away from the Inquisition and Corypheus as she could go. Maybe all the way to her city of pyramids and ivory. If it even existed. 

Sometimes the Inquisition asked too much of her and she was tired…so tired. 

She heard a scrambling from a tent across the way. Cassandra was up. The warrior exited the tent and greeted the inquisitor. Thoughts of running away from her duties dissolved like sand, carried away by a swift breeze. Saelihn hoisted herself on her feet, sparing a glance back at Solas, and went knocking on Varric’s tent. The dwarf was none too happy to be up at the crack of dawn but settled down at the prospect of food.

“As long as you don’t make it Inquisitor I think I’ll be okay.” Varric made a wary face.

“Is there something wrong with my cooking?”

“An elf offered me a salt chew once back in Kirkwall. The fishy taste didn’t leave my mouth for days. Never again.”

Saelihn laughed, “I have never heard of that. Must be a city elf thing. The Dalish tend to live fresh off the land.”

The party ate from their dried stores and packed up camp to make the long trip back to Skyhold. She walked side by side with Solas most of the way while remaining vigilant to bandits and opened rifts.

“I am glad to be leaving this place. There is nothing but death here now. And I don’t know how to sway its politics in our favor.”

“At least your clan is at rest.” Solas countered. And to Solas the fade was just another part of life. An extension to this world. Her clan wasn’t really gone, just moved on. But for her she still felt bereft. And she didn’t know when that would end.

“I have so much more I need to do. I need to put this out of my mind. I need to be strong, resolute,” her voice broke slightly at her last assertion. 

“You are so much stronger than you give yourself credit. I would not be following you if I did not think you capable of all that you are being asked to do.” Solas replied with conviction. “Believe in yourself.”

He had a way of lifting her up. Of saying the right things when they needed to be said. Not always directed at her but when they were she felt honored in a way. Solas had faith in her and in that she would be able to find faith in herself. 

“ _Ma serannas_ Solas.” They fell into companionable silence and when they reached Skyhold she had a feeling that she could handle whatever Thedas and the Inquisition threw her way.


	2. Veins of Scarlet...The Pulsing of Troubled Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas sees the death dealer in Inquisitor Lavellan but also her softer side as well. He'll try to stay with her either way.

Solas looked at the Inquisitor and saw the dichotomy now present in her actions. She blamed the red lyrium for the death of her people. And Solas understood that. It caused the madness that swept through the town of Wycome. The people turned on the Dalish, slaughtering every man woman and child. No one was spared. Their deaths were gruesome and awful. Solas did not wish to see Saelihn in pain. He wished that his love did not have to see that scene at all.

But her actions now confused him. He understood her revenge. The need to wipe out the red lyrium that was plaguing Thedas. She closed veins of the material with Varric at her side. The dwarf knew all too well its effects on people. But then she made frequent trips to Emprise du Lion. She told him it was to collect the precious fade touched silverite, a boon when crafting mage armor. Saelihn said she did it for him. 

If it wasn’t for the look in her eyes when she saw the Red Templars he might have believed her. The Inquisitor’s eyes were stone cold. She only had murder on her mind. Her blades were quick as she sliced into their flesh. She danced around them, using her camouflage to conceal her body. Saelihn snuck behind them and delivered the killing blow into their backs. She didn’t bother to wipe the blood off her face as she hunted down the next Red Templar that crossed her path. 

It was savage and in Solas’ mind a bit unnecessary. But who was he to judge. Corypheus’ minions must be taken care of. The manner of which was up to the Inquisitor. 

When she had exhausted her energy they left Emprise du Lion, their Inquisition soldiers’ packs laden with silverite and herbs. 

“I’m going to make you something special Solas. Hopefully you’ll like it. Harritt has been teaching me many things. Nowhere near as fine a work as he can do but I’m learning in my off-time.” She spoke casually.

He regarded her curiously. She hadn’t taken the time to wash the blood of her jacket. There were still specks of it around her hairline. It was distracting. He stopped her with a hand on her arm and led her to the stream they were following. Dipping a handkerchief in the icy water he started to run the cloth down the side of her face.

Her hand went up to her temple, “What are you doing?”

“You have blood, just there.” And he continued rub at the dried liquid.

“Oh,” Her face looked lost for a moment as if she had begun to realize the carnage she had dealt just hours ago.

“Why do you do this to yourself, _vhenan_?” He asked softly so no one else but Saelihn could hear.

“It had to be done. Don’t you see? Red lyrium is a blight on this land and no one is doing anything about it. So it has to be me.” Her voice held such conviction that it worried him. He knew she could do nothing about the Free Marches so she had attached herself to this cause.

“Don’t lose yourself in this Saelihn,” He put away the handkerchief and they continued their walk.

 

-*-

 

Back in Skyhold he saw the other half of the Inquisitor. The gentle half, the one that was so anathema to the destruction that she caused on the battlefield. He watched her silently from behind a stone railing. Saelihn was tenderly taking seeds from her pack and planting them in her little garden. She had cultivated it ever since renovating the courtyard.

Her shoulders were relaxed, the tension eased from her body. The care she put into transplanting the little seedlings from the smaller pots into larger ones was remarkable. This was woman who dealt death on a daily basis yet she cared enough to be soft with new life. 

Saelihn sat back on her knees and admired her work. Then she looked up straight at him. He realized she would always find him somehow. He hadn’t realized when it had happened but they were tethered together. Each finding their way back to each other; on the battlefield, in the fade, in life. He had been alone for so long that the connection filled him with warmth. Here was someone else to fill the void. To remove the loneliness and the want. But he had to be careful. Need and want always exacted a price. And he didn’t know if he could ultimately pay it.

She smiled at him and his smile in return was immediate. He would go to her. Follow her for as long as he was able. He sat on his knees beside her.

“Your garden is coming along nicely, _lethallan_.”

“Yes I think so too. Elfroot is kind of boring to grow but it is useful. The blood lotus is nice. I want to try to grow crystal grace. I hear it’s quite beautiful. When I pick it in the wild the blooms never last very long.”

“Yes it is a pity.” He agreed.

“You know much about ancient Arlathan do you not?” the Inquisitor asked curiously, “It’s just that you seem so knowledgeable about ancient artifacts when we are out in the Elvhen ruins.”

Solas’ heart skipped a beat, “What did you wish to ask?”

“Do you know what the plants were like, the flowers? I imagine they were beautiful and so very different than what grows today.”

Solas softly let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, “I have heard the flowers sparkled like diamonds in the sun and hung from trees along with the sweetest fruit you have ever tasted. The music of the blossoms provided a lilting backdrop to the Gods and Ancient Elvhen alike. But they are just stories.”

“I would hear anything you would have tell.” She looked up at him, her expression wide and open.

He wanted to. He really wanted to tell her stories of the past. Open her eyes to the glory of Elvhenan when the elves were spread wide across the lands. When they ruled without oppression. But she was still hurting from the extinction of her Dalish clan and he was worried that she would cling to her Dalish ways even harder in this time. She would not be receptive to what he had to tell her. 

“Maybe another time, _da’len_. When you are ready.”

She looked puzzled for a second then turned back to her plants, “Is there magic to help my plants grow faster. Remember I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to magic…fadey…stuff.”

He laughed which caused her to smile. Solas thought her upturned mouth was delightful. He had a sudden urge to place his hand on her cheek, to bend over and press his lips to her own but he reigned in his body’s impulses. 

“I have healing magic. I can help the ones that are wilting.”

“Oh good. Magic away. My poor elfroots don’t take well to this soil I think.” Saelihn gave a lopsided smile and the urge to kiss her was back.

He sighed and went to work. Solas ran his hand over the damaged elfroots. He could feel his mana surging, being brought forth from his hands, and a wave of blue light cascaded over the plants. The little leaves sprung up and he pulled back.

“You did it, Solas. Well done.” She placed her arm around his shoulder in a half hug and pulled away. It was all too brief and he missed the contact when it was gone. 

“Oh damn, what time is it?” She looked up at the sun. “I was supposed to meet the advisors in the war room at noon.” 

Saelihn got up and brushed her knees off. Solas remained where he was. 

“Inquisitor, “He spoke thoughtfully, a comment that needed to be voiced, before she turned to go. “I just wanted to let you know that I will follow you where you go, wherever you go. Whatever needs to be done.”

He watched as her breathing slowed and then stopped. It was not lost on him that his position before her was one of supplication. He would allow her this for now. 

“I understand, Solas.” Her eyes turned away realizing the sudden seriousness of the conversation. “This is not forever. I just need to figure some things out. And if we take out a few Templars along the way. I’m okay with that.”

“As am I.”

“Thank you.”

The Inquisitor left him in the courtyard to his thoughts. He had made promises to her, to stick around, to love her, to be by her side and protect her when she needed that protection (although she was often a force unto herself). But he didn’t know if he could keep those promises. He kept his secrets around him like a shield. But the shield was cracking. Each day Saelihn Lavellan punctured holes in his tightly held cloak of anonymity. His lies would catch up to him one day and all hell would break lose. He would lose her for sure and endure the lonely path once again. It would be like Uthenera all over.

For now he would follow her. Follow her path to Corypheus. Do what must be done. For what else could he do.


End file.
